It Takes a Community to Build a Library & a Library to Build Community
Jesup Breaks Ground for its Addition
BAR HARBOR—Ruth Eveland, former librarian at the Jesup Memorial Library, received a lot of hugs on Saturday afternoon as she stood outside the grounds of the library waiting for a groundbreaking ceremony to start.
“Ruth!” one woman called. “Congratulations!”
“Are you happy?” a woman asked.
“It’s the happiest day,” Eveland said.
“Remember? All those pamphlets we’ve folded in the basement!”
To create an addition to the town’s library, there were a lot of pamphlets folded at the Jesup Memorial Library. There were phone calls, donation cards, letter after letter signed with personal notes, meetings attended, meetings chaired. There was recently a “Hype Committee,” part of the efforts to get the community excited and supportive of an 11,400-square-foot addition to the library that would bring more community spaces, an elevator, a better children’s area and even more much-needed bathrooms.
According to the library’s website, “Designed by Simons Architects in Portland, ME, this addition will provide programming and collection spaces, meeting rooms, an art gallery, makerspace, and a 120-seat auditorium.”
This addition has been a project by many for the many and it broke ground on Saturday as shovels went into the dirt and the library’s expansion took another giant forward.
“Our goals were bold,” Jesup Memorial Library Director Matt DeLaney told those gathered on its School Street lawn Saturday afternoon to celebrate the ground breaking of its $13.9 million addition. The concept plans came to life initially in 2017. COVID-19 disrupted the progress for a bit, but the community came through. The goals may have been bold, DeLaney said, but they were possible because so many people raised money and gave money and spread the word about what the library was trying to do.
To symbolize that community spirit, the celebratory ground breaking was open to all after the initial shovels went into the ground. All were encouraged to move the dirt, to participate, and be part of the library’s history in yet another way just as the library hopes to be part of the personal history of those in the community.
And they did. Spontaneous “yays” and laughter and even a “huzzah” punctuated the crowd during the ceremonies. Eveland was not the only one receiving hugs as old and new staff members, board members, patrons, and kids celebrated that big, bold movement forward for the community.
Ron Beard, the chairman of the Jesup Memorial Library’s Board of Trustees said that the plans for the new space attached to the main library was a long anticipated step. It was a step that required planning and community involvement and turning dreams and hopes into action.
“You’re standing,” Beard told the crowd, “over the ground of that new addition.”
He also thanked and acknowledged that the library sits upon the historic land of the People of the Dawn and said he hoped the library would be good allies to the present Wabanaki people so that all might thrive together.
Thriving together and the positive impacts the library and the community were themes for all the speakers as they celebrated the library’s addition. Over 600 community members donated to the library’s new addition.
Beard thanked all who helped as well as singling out Eveland, who he said began at the library in 2009. “She came with a philosophy that energized our library,” Beard said.
That philosophy? It’s that a library is more than a repository for books. It’s part of a community. It’s a place where people gather, a neutral place for discussions, a place where children read and craft and learn and make some of their earliest friends under the tutelage of Miss Mae in the past few years and now Miss Abby. A library is a place where stewardship, growth, determination, and trust, all combine in projects like the groundbreaking, DeLaney said. But it’s also a place where all those abstract notions become reality as kids craft together, as people contradance in the reading room, as it hosts authors, poets, and book festivals, lectures, and talks.
“It’s a place where we center ideas so big they will change our lives,” DeLaney said.
The library is a place of ideas, learning, and growth, but it’s also of welcoming and friendship according to speakers Kendra and Rebecca Rand, and Town Council Chair Valerie Peacock.
Rebecca Rand first came to the library with her family when she was four, taking out Barbie books and listening to stories from former children’s librarian Mae Corrion. Now, nine years later, she shares books with current children’s librarian Abby Morrow, and participates in crafternoons. The library was a place of welcoming and of friendship for her as she grew into a new community.
Kendra Rand, Rebecca’s mom, said, “the Jesup was one of the warmest sources of welcome to us,” when the family moved to Bar Harbor nine years ago.
For Peacock, the library is a place that can grow a sense of self and create defining moments in the lives of youths and adults; a place where people develop and grow as they’re exposed to ideas, books, and others. A library is often a place where people find common ground, she said. They embrace ideas and diversity and divergent thinking.
It’s a place, Peacock poignantly said, where we “see the reflections of the hopes for our community.”
LIBRARY HISTORY
According to an April 15, 1910 addition of the Bangor Daily News the library broke ground and the “work will be rushed right along.” The side had been plowed and contracts given to John K. Preble and C.K. Hodgkins, and Perley Pond for masonry, carpentry and granite work.
In the “County Gossip” of an April 6, 1910, Ellsworth American it reads, “Plans for the Jesup Memorial Library at Bar Harbor, to cost about $75,000 are in the hands of bidders.”
The dedication of the library, a gift of Mrs. Morris K. Jesup, of New York, in memory of her husband, took place in early September 1911. The end cost of the building was $80,000 and it was billed “one of the finest library buildings of its size in New England” according to the Ellsworth American. It opened in mid-September.
The current brick building with its slate hip roof and wide front façade has a recessed center entrance. It was not the first library in Bar Harbor, literally. Others occurred on front porches and homes around 1875. Two years later a little building was built. But soon the 8,000 books made things a bit cramped. Mrs. Jesup gave money for both the current building and the endowment. It was built by Delano and Aldrich.
Mrs. Morris Jesup was originally Maria van Antwerp DeWitt, daughter of Rev. Thomas DeWitt, a New York pastor. Her mother was Eliza Ann Waterman. The library’s website reads, “The historical record on Maria DeWitt Jesup is slight and this is likely due to her own wishes.”
The library goes on to write, “The official record of the August 30, 1911 dedication of the Jesup Memorial Library opens with remarks from Reverend William Lawrence who emphasized that “The character of Mrs. Jesup…is simple and direct. While other event speakers spoke of her husband’s character, in conformity to her wishes each avoided characterizing Maria.”
Mrs. Jesup’s husband was a banker and a philanthropist. He founded the YMCA of New York and was the president of the American Museum of Natural History and died in 1908. He also funded multiple expeditions to the Arctic and helped finance care for wounded Civil War soldiers. He was knighted by Tsar Nicholas for his philanthropy.
THE ADDITION
In 2019 the library began restoring its drainage. It installed foundation membranes. It repaired and repointed the masonry around the exterior of the building. It was a $2 million project funded via donations and was called “the first comprehensive renovation effort to place in the library’s 110-year history.”
Jesup Memorial Library Advancement and Community Relations Director Lila Miller worked tirelessly on the project.
Supporting businesses with gifts over $25,000 included First National Bank, Machias Savings Bank, Witham Family Hotels Charitable Fund, Galyn’s, and Side Street Cafe.
The new addition does not impact the library’s inclusion on the National Historic Register of Buildings. It includes a climate controlled archive sections, teen and children sections, makerspace, workspaces, meeting areas and a room for events that can seat 120. It’s also designed for sustainability. The windows are also meant to be bird-safe.
LINKS TO THE LIBRARY
Check out the library, the addition, and all its programs and ways to donate here.
Photos by Shaun Farrar and Carrie Jones